


it'll be better

by majjale



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: F/M, Implied Relationships, Minor Angst, angelica has a guilty crisis, just workin out some feelings abt angelica and eliza, switching POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-13
Updated: 2017-10-13
Packaged: 2019-01-16 23:42:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12352956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/majjale/pseuds/majjale
Summary: Eliza knows.





	it'll be better

Eliza knows.  


She doesn’t say it, but she knows. She’s known from the beginning, Angelica thinks-- her sister has never been confrontational, not when she could keep her snarky moments hidden between them, whispers behind gloved hands, sly eyes trading judgments over the dinner table. They bonded through muttering the same things under their breath, through the conspiratorial glances when someone confirmed their suspicions, but there could be no knowing looks this time, because the knowing was the problem.

* * *

_“Remember when we met him, at that party?” Eliza asks over tea, just days after her wedding. “You two seemed to get along really well. I thought you were going to snatch him out from under me.”  
_

__

_Angelica goes cold. “You said you wanted him, and I love you. You know I’d never do that to you.” It’s a syrupy half-lie, sugaring the gulp of tea she uses to cover how her fingers jump._  


_“I know.” Eliza’s smile doesn’t reach her eyes, gone soft and shiny in the afternoon light. There’s the clink of the saucer, a dainty sip. Her eyes slide away. “You’d never do it.”_

* * *

The knowing was the problem, the problem to end all problems, the problem that kept Angelica up at night, pacing her room like a caged animal, biting her fingernails and stressing. Was she supposed to apologize? _I’m sorry, Eliza, I’m sorry._

Acknowledging it at all felt like defeat, like heartbreak refracted into a thousand jagged pieces, but Eliza knew, Eliza _knew_ , and that was worse than admitting it, worse than trapping it behind her teeth. The knowing was rose thorns pricking her skin, little digs that deepened her guilt-- Eliza was made of gentle reprimands that burned relentlessly, soft words that hit the bottom of Angelica’s stomach like ash-crusted stones, each rock engraved with leftover wariness, veined with icy tension.

* * *

_There’s a letter on the dresser._ My dearest Angelica, _she writes. Her sister crumples._  


Phillip is well. I think Alex is all right. I don’t quite know. _Her handwriting is elegant, curlingly perfect, even as her words are bittersweet, and all Angelica tastes is bitter._ He’s occupied so often that he barely talks to me some days. I pulled out the box of his old letters, you know-- _she folds further, sinking into the chair--_ and they’re even more beautiful than I remember. All those sweet words, the promises, the declarations... he’s made so many declarations. I suppose he defends some.  


You once asked if we could share him. I laughed then. Now he couldn’t be had by one person, let alone two. _The paper is trembling. No, it’s just her hands. Eliza, her Eliza, swallowed in silence by a man who never stops talking._ I wish he still wrote to me, _Eliza says. Angelica can see her face._ I know he’s busy, but he writes so much, one letter couldn’t hurt. It doesn’t have to be long.  


_There’s more, about her children, her health, asking after Angelica’s, and it’s signed, but it’s blurry-- tears are filling her eyes. She folds the letter in her lap and lets them fall, so she doesn’t have to see the pile of letters from the same address, signed with a different name._

* * *

Angelica tried, over and over, to convince herself she was joking, or childishly infatuated, or mistaking friendship for more. She wanted so desperately to be satisfied that he could be her friend, her _family_ , but that _more_ kept creeping in, and Eliza knew. She couldn’t turn it off, no more than Eliza could, she couldn’t forget him, couldn’t move on. There’s no forgetting people, not when they’re so close, so touchably unobtainable, but she wouldn’t give up Eliza just to get away, so he would always be nearby, and Eliza would always know. He told her himself-- _Angelica tried to take a bite of me--_ no stress, he said, don’t stress, but once she knows... once she knows...  


Angelica paced and paced and paced, asking _better or worse, better or worse, better or worse_. She teared up and tore out and tried, _God_ did she try, saying _better, better, better._ She would grip the edges of the sink, lean into the mirror, stare herself down, and ask, _for who, for who, for who?_

* * *

_The bedroom door opens. She doesn’t turn. Her shoulders are shaking, papers strewn around her in a storm, the hearth flickering. A suitcase is set down.  
_

_“Eliza.” It’s as soft as that strong voice goes. “Eliza, I’m so sorry.”  
_

__

_Eliza shrinks into herself. There are tear stains on every page, a few in shreds, some nothing more than floating ashes in the air-- Angelica picks her way through them, fingers coming to rest on Eliza’s sleeve. “You have married an Icarus, and he has flown too close to the sun.”_  


_Eliza’s head whips around, dark hair flying, and Angelica stumbles backward in surprise. There is a look on her face that Angelica didn’t know she knew how to make. Sharp eyes pouring tears, glinting with fury. Lips twisted in a snarl. A soul-deep betrayal written in all the lines, cut deeper than they used to be, aging her sister with heartbreak, all backlit by the fire._  


_It barely lasts a second. Then she’s scrubbed red from crying, a little sister lost to grief. She hiccups and turns away. Angelica reaches out again, tentative, stalling in the smoky air._  


_“Eliza,” she whispers, sad and stunned and angrier at him with every passing moment._  


_Eliza stops trembling, stops crying. She stares at the paper, at a single word, at a name she knows now and only now-- better or worse, better or worse, better or worse. Her voice is quieter than the soot drifting around them._  


_“I thought it would be you.”_  


_She sinks to her knees and Angelica stands, one hand outstretched, both silent in the firelight._

* * *

She’s made up her mind. The knowing is too much. She’ll find someone visiting, someone who lives far away, someone who does what she needs them to do, even if they won’t be what she wants. She’ll leave-- she’ll be gone as soon as possible, tomorrow if she can-- and they’ll all get some peace. She’ll write them, write them both. He loves writing, maybe more than anything, certainly more than anyone, and she deserves this distance, deserves this solitude with him. She’ll remove herself from the narrative, visit someday like a footnote, come back only if Eliza needs her. It’ll be better, Angelica thinks-- she has always been confrontational when she knew she couldn’t keep things hidden, no whispers behind gloved hands or conspiratorial glances across the dinner table. She knows it’ll be better. She _knows_ it will.  


_For who, for who, for who?_

**Author's Note:**

> like my work? find me on [tumblr](majjale.tumblr.com)


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